Figure (music)

The 1964 Grove's Dictionary defines the figure as "the exact counterpart of the German 'motiv' and the French 'motif'": it produces a "single complete and distinct impression".

[6]A phrase originally presented or heard as a motif may become a figure that accompanies another melody, such as in the second movement of Claude Debussy's String Quartet.

Figures play a most important part in instrumental music, in which it is necessary that a strong and definite impression should be produced to answer the purpose of words, and convey the sense of vitality to the otherwise incoherent succession of sounds.

In pure vocal music this is not the case, as on the one hand the words assist the audience to follow and understand what they hear, and on the other the quality of voices in combination is such as to render strong characteristic features somewhat inappropriate.

As clear an instance as could be given of the breaking up of a subject into its constituent figures for the purpose of development, is the treatment of the first subject of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, which he breaks up into three figures corresponding to the first three bars.As an example of his treatment of (a) may be taken—(b) is twice repeated no less than thirty-six times successively in the development of the movement; and (c) appears at the close as follows:Examples of this kind of treatment of the figures contained in subjects are very numerous in classical instrumental music, in various degrees of refinement and ingenuity; as in the 1st movement of Mozart's G minor Symphony; in the same movement of Beethoven's 8th Symphony; and in a large number of Bach's fugues, as for instance Nos.

It is of course impossible for any but the highest genius to carry this out consistently, but in proportion as music approaches to this ideal, it is of a high order as a work of art, and in the measure in which it recedes from it, it approaches more nearly to the mass of base, slovenly, or false contrivances which lie at the other extreme, and are not works of art at all.

As the common notion that music chiefly consists of pleasant tunes grows weaker, the importance of figures becomes proportionately greater.

A succession of isolated tunes is always more or less inconsequent, however deftly they may be connected together, but by the appropriate use of figures and groups of figures, such as real musicians only can invent, and the gradual unfolding of all their latent possibilities, continuous and logical works of art may be constructed; such as will not merely tickle the hearer's fancy, but arouse profound interest, and raise him mentally and morally to a higher standard.